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My Advice: Avoid a Huge Cloth Diaper Stash

If you do any amount of reading on the internet about cloth diapers, you will probably run into this advice: you should have a variety of diapers. I think this is completely wrong. You do not need a huge cloth diaper stash with lots of variety. If you watch “huge cloth diaper stash” videos you will find mamas explaining what they use the different diapers for and which ones they reach for most often.

My recommendation: pick one brand and one style of diaper and stick with it.

It might take you a little bit of research and testing out diapers, but you will find one that you just love. And from my perspective, I simply don’t have the energy to shuffle around diapers I don’t like using.

FIRST: A Huge Cloth Diaper Stash is Not the Norm

Most of the videos and articles you will read will be from mamas that have a huge cloth diaper stash with lots of different brands and different types of diapers. Just search “cloth diaper stash” on youtube and you will see what I mean. I think these stashes are either a result of overzealous shopping OR sponsorship. Most of the big influencers readily admit that they receive diapers for free in return for reviews. And after dozens of reviews they end up with a stash that is twice the size they need and full of a variety of diapers they don’t love.

^Seriously. This is not realistic! or practical!

You don’t need this many diapers. If you use covers and snap/lay-in inserts you only need 8-10 covers per child. If you use pocket diapers or All in Ones, you need about 24. By my estimate, in the video she has 3 times as many diapers as she needs.

Reason One: Your Sanity

If you have a variety of diapers it will mean that you will have to learn the nuances of using each one to get it to work just right for your baby. I don’t know about you, but I don’t like the idea of having to learn 10 different, or even 5 different diapers. This one stuffs, that one snaps, the purple one has to use the special inserts. #aintnobodygottimeforthat

Reason Two: Laundry

Having a lot of different types of diapers makes sorting all of your diaper laundry so much more cumbersome. When all of your diapers are the same, you only have three stacks of diaper laundry: covers, inserts and cloth wipes (if you are using cloth wipes). When you add on different types of diapers in different brands you have a lot more things to sort through and organize.

Reason Three: Care Givers

It will be much more difficult to explain the differences in your different diapers to care givers. <— this is huge.

If you want your family to be on board, you need to be able to explain how to use them to grandma, babysitters, aunts and uncles, etc. If it takes more than 5 minutes to explain your diapers they aren’t going to be supportive. And they will end up buying their own disposables to avoid dealing with your complicated cloth.

To make this easier on the people that watch my little bean, I try to make sure that I always have diapers that are pre-stuffed and ready to use in the diaper bag.

A Note About Fit

There are several influencers that recommend having a variety of diapers, claiming that not all diapers fit all babies at all times. I think that is baloney.

The fit of a diaper is not going to change on a daily basis, or even a weekly basis. Find a brand that works for your babe and sell all the rest. It’s just not worth hanging on to diapers that you don’t like, even as back ups.